Demolition
by SJlikeslists
Summary: Parker lets what Jarod said to her about his part in bringing Tommy into her life actually sink in  set around the time of "Til Death Do Us Part" .  I don't usually "genre" my stories, but this is absolutely angst.


**Disclaimer:** The Pretender is not mine.

**Why does this piece exist?** It seems to me that everything proceeded rather calmly after Jarod dropped the fact that he had finagled her and Tommy together in Parker's lap. As to this particular version of her thought processes, I'm not really sure. It just sort of happened (in an annoying way, as drunken Parker's thoughts do not lend themselves to correctly structured and punctuated sentences).

_**Demolition**_

I had a hard earned, cherished piece of knowledge that once upon a time someone saw me and saw something of worth. It was not in what I could give them, it was not in how I could further their agenda, it was just simply me. Someone had wanted to know me. It was intoxicatingly precious. It was so affirmingly brilliant that it had the power to drive away the darkest of self doubts and lingering depressions.

It was all a lie.

He can attempt to equivocate all he likes. He can smugly speak of the rewards of a noble undertaking. He can talk of how real it all was, but it wasn't. It was his creation. It was his project. A project. My ulcer burns just at the taste of that word.

Tommy loved his projects. He was the master craftsman. He was always seeing what could be rather than what really was. He came; he assessed; he repaired. Why should the flow of his life have been any different when it came to me?

I feel a nearly hysterical urge to laugh as I pour another tumbler full from the bottle that is beginning to feel suspiciously light. It 's been a long time since I've had this much to drink - if one can consider one measly year of ones' existence to be a long time. Perhaps I have forgotten how to hold my liquor? That's a strangely comforting thought. If it's true, I'll soon be past the point of thinking. Oblivion is far more attractive than pondering what would have become of us, what would have become of me, when his repairs were all completed.

Tommy fixed things for the sheer joy of fixing. It was not because he wanted to keep them when the joy of fixing was all done. Where would that have left me when the project that was my life was structurally intact, polished, and ready for display? Or was I so utterly damaged that I was to become a lifetime project?

It hurts, and I don't want it to hurt. I'm so, so tired of hurting. All of my memories are spread out in front of me, and there's noting left that is worth remembering. They were sacred; now they're tarnished. They're corrupted; they're destroyed. All it took was one pathetic little phone call.

I wonder if he's proud. Does it please him to know how much power he held over me in that moment? I didn't even have enough pride not to let him see. I was practically begging, licking the information out of his hand. Anything, anything at all just to have one more piece, one more moment, one more anything to do with my Tommy. And he wasn't even really my Tommy at all.

My accident of fate wasn't an accident of fate. My chance meeting wasn't a chance meeting. My moment when life wasn't planned or guided or manipulated into being but was simply life happening wasn't just life happening at all. The time in my life that was mine and only mine wasn't even mine alone. I loved him, and I knew, knew he loved me. Now, I'm forced to wonder if all he loved was what he was making of me.

He loved what he made of his houses and projects. He loved the work of his hands. He loved that he created beauty where others saw nothing of use. It was a gift, and he wielded it well. And I loved that he loved what he did. Is it churlish, then, of me to resent it if that's what I was to him?

Is it morbid to wonder the particulars of the conversation that hatched the beginning of everything that brought us to here? Over coffee perhaps? Or is it likelier it started as casual speculation as they worked to scrub varnish stains from their hands?

"You're good at fixing," he would compliment. Tommy would modestly shrug.

"I know someone, a woman, who needs to be fixed."

It's blunt, but it's his version of honest. I can hear the words said in my head. I can see how it went - the dangling challenge, the acceptance of bait. I fill in the pieces of each of their parts as if they were puppets trapped in my mind.

That's ironic. It deserves another drink in salute. I'm the one who has been the puppet all along.

It would be so much easier to call it malicious. It might be of comfort to know it was done out of hope for distraction or even an attempt to buy time. It's a pity I ever learned to struggle with lies.

He did it - he must have - because he looked at me and saw a project to fix. It's so like him, so like both of them, that it's remarkable that I never noticed the similarity before. I never wanted to be their project, but why should what I want suddenly be taken into consideration?

I loved Tommy.

I love Tommy.

He's dead.

There's no room for questions. There's no chance to offer explanations. Can I blame him for wanting to do what he did best?

I might not have minded. I might not have cared, if I knew he cared enough to discover on his own that the need for fixing was there.

Would he have?

Would we have?

I can't ever know because someone couldn't leave me alone.

That makes it hurt more. The one person I know in this world who should know what it is like, who should understand what it is to have no portion of time that isn't under the shadow of this place that ties us together, couldn't help himself from controlling it all just like they do.

He knew how precious a moment away from life by design would be.

He knew how much it would destroy to find out it wasn't.

He couldn't stop himself from doing it anyway. I don't think he even saw that that's what he was doing.

He's trapped me more tightly than ever they could with their threats and their walls and their words. You can run from those things if you choose to, but you can't run away from yourself.

If he can't break away from the things that they taught him . . .

If he can't help himself from following what they are . . .

What hope is there for me?

We learned at the same knee after all.


End file.
